Two or three years ago, I received an email from Chris Brogan asking if I would give some advice to a recent college graduate named Avi Kaplan who was interested in a career of using social media for nonprofits. I chatted with Avi and answered some of his questions. Not long after that, Avi helped Stacey Monk develop a strategy for the very first Tweetsgiving.

A few weeks ago, Avi asked me if I would participate in a blog tour for the Jewels of Elul focused on renewal and beginnings that benefits a residential addiction treatment center in Los Angeles. The Hebrew month of Elul (which started on August 11th), the site will feature reflections from prominent figures on Renewal and Beginnings and a blog tour as well. While I don’t have a strong connection to the nonprofit or even the cause, I know Avi and wanted to support his work. In addition, the theme of new beginnings and renewal has been on mind lately.

This last year has been a year of many new beginnings – a move across the country, a new title, a new book, a new blog, a new company, and new friends and projects. Starting something new is hard for some people. It is a change after all. But with every new project, you always need an end point for reflection.

And that’s the point I want to relate to social media. Whether your begin a new campaign or a new routine, it is important anticipate a point of reflection. We begin a new project – sometimes with to high expectations or excitement. But what we don’t anticipate is the stuff that won’t go perfectly.

When end up avoiding talking about mistakes and we avoid reflection that explores and opens up new breakthroughs because we’re moving too fast into the next action. So, with your next social media beginning, be sure to hit the pause button at the end asks some questions that might lead you to new insights. Here’s a list of questions that my colleague, June Holley, shared with me that I’ve been using.

1.What worked really well in this project?
2.Did it accomplish goals or outcomes? In what ways?
3.Did it fall short? Why?
4.What would you do differently?
5.What surprises came up during the project? What unexpected happened? What could you learn or capture from that?
6.What insights did you get during the project?
7.What processes did you use that worked well? Which didn’t work so well? Why do you think that was?
8.How did people work together? Were there conflicts? How were they handled? Did people get any new insights or perspectives as a result?
9.Were there people or perspectives missing from this project that you would include next time?
10.What skills and processes did you help people learn as part of this project? What skills and processes would you spend time on if you did this over again?
11.What were the most innovative aspects of the project? How did they work?
12.What did you do in this project that you could transfer to other projects?
13.What is the most troubling aspect of the project? What might you do to deal with it differently?
14.What skills came in most handy during this project? What skills did this project make you realize you need to acquire?
15.What really puzzles you about this project? What are unanswered questions you have about what happened?
16.What intrigues you about this project?
17.What would you like to learn more about that would help this (or other projects) in the future?
18.Where did we mess up? Make mistakes? Fall on our face? What can we learn from this?

“This post is part of Jewels of Elul, which celebrates the Jewish tradition to dedicate the 29 days of the
month of Elul to growth and discovery in preparation for the coming high holy days. This year the program is benefiting Beit T’shuvah, a residential addiction treatment center in Los Angeles. You can subscribe on Jewels of Elul to receive inspirational reflections from public figures each day of the month. You don’t have to be on the blog tour to write a blog post on “The Art of Beginning… Again”. We invite everyone to post this month (August 11th – September 8th) with Jewels of Elul to grow and learn.”

Hi Rudy, Thanks for that prompt. The link to the bacgnroukd info is on the site under blogroll and you are absolutely right it should have been in the About section or in a separate Contact area.. The expectation initially was that for the most part people viewing the site had been involved in the process. However, I had intended to get more done on it sooner but we had some health issues in our family that took precedence over volunteer projects. If you have some time and talent to gift to this project we would love the help! I’ll be at the open house on Wednesday, perhaps we could chat about it then.jamie